Boards

We’ve been keeping our eye on a particular Canadian individual since the turn of 2011. His work is super lo-fi, often incredibly engaging and stands out defiantly in his own sphere. If you follow our writing you might already be familiar with the name Motëm, aka Slow Hand Motëm, as he’s someone we’ve already given column inches to; he co-handled SR Mix #71 alongside Coco Bryce under their Light Club guise and, more recently, we previewed his 7” release, ’Vanity Hugs,’ on budding label Astro:Dynamics. Basically, there’s a real enchantment to his work that comes through whether he works solo or in collaboration with other artists. His music just seems to fit so snug with us; his wry vocal delivery, bombastic synth work and the sheer volume of ideas he sends over make us smile constantly.

We just received details of his new project, The Forthcoming Mixtape, which presents possibly the clearest look at his artistic vision to date. Where his previous work has been spread over limited edition CDRs, compilation tracks or split singles, Forthcoming unifies the awkward limbs of his output. Tracks like ‘Consequence’ and ‘Fabric’ channel the brittle song writing of early Oaklandazulasylum era Why? or cLOUDDEAD, the out of tune lyrics teetering deliriously on top of the drum loops and ‘In Between Moments’ is probably the giddy height of that side of his production work given all its rapid fire bass, overly reverbed cheap piano and snapshot like arrangement – it’s is a brief flash in the pan kind of genius.

Everything, each one of the 14 tracks, on Forthcoming… is homespun, gritty and concise. Ideas like the piano driven, house tempoed ‘All @ Once,’ hint at the prospective achievements due Motëm; he can exist in a world populated by producers like Hudson Mohawke, Jacques Greene, Machinedrum and Lunice but he’ll never really sit comfortably next to them. He revels in the weird, pseudo reality of the songs he makes and as he told us when we spoke to him back in March, “I’m playful. Like a cat.’ Nothing I’ve written since really sums him up better than that statement.